Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990 TAG: 9004130868
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JUDITH SCHWAB SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
In addition to pressing matters such as toasting marshmallows, they're looking at the implications of racism, war and peace, the plight of the poor, the environment and the condition of education.
Jana Doyle, leader of Brownie Troop 878, was a Brownie herself way back in 1959. Her 8-year-old daughter, Lindsay, is a Brownie. Lindsay's 5-year-old sister, Lauren, attends the weekly meetings as a tag-along.
Brownies are little girls roughly between the ages of 6 and 9, plus a few younger sisters, like Lauren, along for the ride. They are learning about the issues by interviewing guests at their weekly meetings at the Margaret Beeks Elementary School.
These interviews, conducted by 16 or so seated but squirming Brownies, will never be mistaken for "Meet the Press." Still, Doyle said, "They surprise me all the time."
They remember an amazing amount, even though they don't appear to be paying close attention.
While discussing what to do about poor people, for instance, one of the Brownies tells the group that there's a box at Western Sizzlin' where you can put money for poor people. When her family goes there they contribute.
"What would happen if we all put money in the box when we went to Western Sizzlin'?" Doyle asks them. A Brownie answers: "The poor would become the medium-size rich."
Racism, a word they didn't know right off, was defined by them as "black and white." When asked what other colors people come in, the answer was "brown, yellow and pink."
At this point, one of the girls pointed out they had learned a song at school about the world being a rainbow.
And they knew the story of Rosa Parks, the black woman who finally refused to sit in the back of the bus in Montgomery, Ala., 3 1/2 decades ago and sparked the American civil rights movement.
It is these kinds of casual connections, made while they swing, cross and experimentally twist their legs, paste name tags to their foreheads and adjust pesky underwear, that lets you know they are learning something, despite the fidget factor.
Dolly Leinhardt was invited to a meeting to be interviewed. She said she was selected because she is "an older person."
Leinhardt, who has just entered her sixth decade, patiently gave her views on the topics and answered a few questions, including the irrelevant, "Did you ride on the Titanic?"
Stella Siegel was another guest. She has lived in a number of countries and once served in the Israeli army. Siegel pointed out the countries she had lived in on a globe in the classroom.
After the meeting, Brownies were overheard referring to Zambia as "that pink country."
Siegel turned the tables on the Brownies and asked them questions. When asked what they could do about pollution, they said they could recycle and "not spray stuff on your bugs 'cause it could wash into the streams."
On the topic of education, Siegel asked them who didn't like school. They all raised their hands. Then she asked them who did like school. They all raised their hands.
On the subject of peace, Siegel said we all need peace. Then she asked who didn't need peace. The answers: "My brother" and "Oscar the Grouch."
The Brownies came to the consensus that not only didn't Oscar need peace, he probably loves pollution, too. Since Siegel is relatively new to American culture, the Brownies had to explain that Oscar is a Muppet character on "Sesame Street."
While the Brownies may not be the most sophisticated of interviewers, they were thinking about the issues they had identified.
The breakfast-time question at the Doyle household: "Is a Cheerio a small member of the bagel family?" This told Doyle her daughters had heard of the basic food groups and were attempting to do some classifying.
The Brownies also are doing some independent thinking by challenging the fairy tales. When asked to put new endings on fairy tales and act them out, the results were enlightening:
Sleeping Beauty married the prince and then she went to medical school and specialized in sleep disorders.
Red Riding Hood left Grandma's house and promptly sold her story to television.
After the meeting, while Brownies chased each other, Doyle thumbed through the Brownie Handbook, a text she didn't have in 1959.
"I had to read my brothers' Boy Scout book," she said.
The Brownie Handbook's illustrations are so ethnically and professionally mixed it's hard to find a representative of the typical white 1950s family - Dick, Jane, et al.
Instead, there are kids and adults of every color and condition - women in hard hats, kids in wheelchairs, rabbis, doctors, blind people, and on and on.
These illustrations are used to teach everything from good nutrition to knot tying.
As a Brownie shuffled by, wearing gloves on her feet to make her look like the big bad wolf, Doyle found something familiar in the book. "I made one of these," she said, pointing to a yarn doll. "So did Lindsay."
by CNB